Page 24 of Inez

"Moving," Lorenzo says.

I put my hand on his shoulder and follow him forward. Grit crunches under my feet. My toe hits something soft yet solid—a body. I glance down; sightless eyes stare at nothing. I slip in a pool of blood, and Lorenzo's hand flashes out to catch me, steady me. Another body. Another.

"Parking lot is clear," Toro says.

Moving slowly and cautiously in a crouch, barrel sweeping side to side, Lorenzo precedes me through the haze, stepping over rubble and bodies. They're piled at the base of the stairs.

"Jesus Cristo," Lorenzo mutters. "What a clusterfuck." He peers up the stairwell, but there isn't much to see: the explosion partially caved in the stairwell. "Clear down here," he says.

"We will have to exit through the club," I say. "Rendezvous at the SUVs ASAP. We need to get out of here in case there's a second wave."

6

ONE IMMUTABLE FACT

LORENZO

Toro is winged, a through-and-through to his left tricep—which is a whole shit-ton of meat, so it could have been worse. Taj took a grazing round to the side of the neck, which bled fucking buckets, bathing his entire upper torso, making it look worse than it was. And Fonz, the lunatic jokester, took a sharp, jagged chunk of metal to the back of the thigh. It's embedded deep, too risky to remove, so we wrap it in a makeshift bandage. Toro and I support him as we move through the club.

We emerge into daylight again and make our way around the giant building, Inez leading the way in a tactical crouch, rifle sweeping this way and that, pivoting mid-stride to assess every possible angle. We reach the array of Mercedes SUVs—most of them are so bullet-riddled as to be useless, the glass shattered, tires flattened, bodies full of holes. Three of them, however, are driveable, with only a few dings and dents from ricochets marring the bodies. We pile everyone into the two vehicles; it's a tight fit as these aren't the most spacious of trucks, despite their exorbitant price tag.

Annika, behind the front passenger seat, grunts in pain as she uses her hands to force her knee to bend the right way."This thing was not built with a six-foot-three giraffe-woman in mind," she grumbles.

Inez scoots the seat forward until her knees touch the dash. "Better?"

"Yes, much, thanks," Annika answers.

Inez snickers as she buckles. "You ought to see Chance trying to shoehorn himself into these things."

Annika splutters, and then dissolves into cackles. "Ohmygod, I'd pay money to see that!"

"The amount of cursing and bitching is unbelievable." Inez drops her voice into a remarkably accurate impression of Chance. "'What is this, a car forants?'"

"Where to,meu amor?" I ask, glancing at Inez. "Also, I think that was your first joke."

She glares at me, but the ice is melting and the daggers have dulled. "Why do you keep pointing out whenever I laugh or smile? Are you trying to make me self-conscious?"

I reach a hand out and rest it on her thigh. "No, just the opposite. To see a smile on your face, to hear you laugh?É linda, meu amor."

Terra, wedged in the middle between Annika and Anjalee, leans forward between the two front seats. "Um, wait, hold on. Inez…he called you 'amor.' And, y'know, I don't even speak English all that well, but I'm pretty damn sure that means 'love.'"

Inez meets my eyes, and then glances at my hand resting on her thigh, and then turns to look at Terra. "It is…complicated. We have a long history."

I sigh. "Our historyiscomplicated, I suppose. What is not complicated, however, is the fact that I love her." Inez opens her mouth to protest, but I speak over her. "I know, I know. You aren't ready for that. It's alright. I am a patient man."

Rather than answer, Inez turns her attention out the window. "The Bellagio," she murmurs, after a moment.

The Bellagio is in sight when Inez's phone buzzes with an incoming message. She reads it, pockets the phone, and glances at me. "Go to the service entrance. Arrangements have been made."

Finding the service entrance turns out to be the trickiest part. Once we arrive at the rear of the building—after a lot of circling and wrong turns—a ramp leads down to a loading dock where several tractor-trailers are docked, supplies being unloaded. A burly bald man in a tailored suit, the curly wire of an earpiece trailing under his collar, directs us to park off to one side of the loading dock next to a white catering van and a few Bellagio groundskeeping fleet pickups. Toro and Taj assist Fonz out of the Mercedes—he spent the drive here on his belly in the back seat in what must have been a truly awkward and uncomfortable position—necessitated by the shrapnel's location. Inez and the security operative lead the way through a maze of service hallways. None of the staff we pass seem overly shocked to see a cavalcade of armed operators bathed in blood helping each other limp along the corridors, coated in dust and grime. Makes you wonder what they must see in a normal day that they wouldn't bat an eye at the spectacle.

Inez murmurs a question to our guide—I can't hear her question but I hear his response: "Our staff is entirely discreet, ma'am, you have my word. Your presence here will remain a secret. Only myself and a handful of hand-picked staff know of your arrival. No one here at the Bellagio will speak out of turn."

A freight elevator takes us up, we get off, transfer to an express elevator dedicated to a penthouse suite which, apparently, is our destination. It turns out that a significant percentage of an entire floor has been converted into a single suite with multiple bedrooms, bathrooms, and a kitchenette. The girls all ooh and ahh at the luxurious accommodations,while Inez, Toro, and I do a sweep. Taj helps Fonz lie down on his belly on the couch.

Our Bellagio security liaison, Bradley, says a private doctor has been contacted and will be here soon to see to Fonz's leg and any other injuries. He addresses Inez and I separately, then.

"The owner of this suite made separate arrangements for you two—they actually own the entire floor." Bradley hands us each a heavy black keycard. "The elevator to this floor cannot be accessed without these keys—and these are the only two. I will be posted in the lobby near the elevator, and more of my men will be monitoring the stairwells."